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Method
Reagents-
1. Anthrone reagent. A solution containing 0.05 per cent anthrone, 1
per cent thiourea, and 72 per cent by volume HzS04 is used. For each
liter of reagent, place in a suitable flask 280 ml. of distilled water and add
cautiously 720 ml. of concentrated H&04, sp. gr. 1.84, of highest purity.
Place in a flask 500 mg. of purified anthrone, 10 gm. of highest purity
thiourea, and 1 liter of the 72 per cent H,SOb. Warm the mixture to
80-90”, occasionally shaking the flask to mix the contents. Do not over-
heat the mixture. Cool and store in a refrigerator. This reagent will
keep for at least 2 weeks in a refrigerator.
2. 5 per cent trichloroacetic acid.
3:95 per cent ethanol.
* Supported in part by a grant from the Division of Research Grants and Fellow-
ships, National Institutes of Health, United States Public Health Service.
583
584 GLYCOGEN IN LIVER AND MUSCLE
4. Glucose standard. (a) Stock solution. Dissolve 100 mg. of dry, high-
est purity glucose in 100 ml. of saturated benzoic acid solution. (b) Work-
ing standard. Place 5 ml. of the stock solution in a 100 ml. volumetric
flask and make up to volume with saturated benzoic acid solution. 2 ml.
of this solution, containing 0.1 mg. of glucose, are used as a standard.
Procedure-Place the t,issue sample in an efficient blendor under an ap-
propriate volume of TCA and homogenize for 3 minutes. Pour the ho-
mogenate into a suitable centrifuge tube or bottle. Centrifuge and decant
the supernatant fluid upon an acid-washed filter paper placed in a funnel
draining into a graduated cylinder. Transfer the residue quantitatively
to the blendor with an appropriate volume of TCA and homogenize again
After all tubes have reached the temperature of the cold water, they are
immersed in a boiling water bath to a depth a little above the level of the
liquid in the tubes for 15 minutes and then removed to a cold water bath
and cooled to room temperature. The tubes and stoppers are wiped dry
and the contents of each tube are transferred to a calorimeter tube and
read at 620 mp after adjusting the calorimeter with the reagent blank.
Care is taken to avoid introduction of lint or contaminating carbohydrate
into the anthrone reaction.
Calculation-The calculation of glycogen is as follows:
volume of extract
D-u x 0.1 x x 100 x 0.9
DX gm. of tissue
DISCUSSION
TABLE I
Results of comparative studies upon muscle are shown in Table II. The
values found by TCA extraction ranged from 92 to 96 per cent of those
obtained by KOH extraction.
Bloom, Lewis, Schumpert, and Shen (6) made a study of the amounts
of glycogen obtained from liver and muscle by boiling with 30 per cent
KOH and by homogenizing with 10 per cent TCA. These authors found
that the amounts of TCA-extractable glycogen in the livers of fed rats,
rats fasted for 12 hours, and rats fasted for 24 hours were 84.9, 56.4, and
7.9 per cent, respectively, of the values obtained in each case by KOH
extraction. The per cent of TCA-extractable glycogen in liver observed
by these authors varied directly with the glycogen level. Our findings
are in good agreement with the data of Bloom et al. However, we do not,
N. V. CARROLL, It. W. LONGLEY, AND J. H. ROE 587
agree with their assumption that the value obtained by KOH extraction
represents the “total” and therefore the true glycogen content of the liver,
since, as will be shown later, the KOH extract contains non-glycogen car-
bohydrate.
Bloom et al. (6) found that the TCA-extractable glycogen of muscle in
normal fed rats was 55 per cent of that obtained by KOH extraction, a
value that is considerably lower than the TCA recoveries we obtained
(92 to 96 per cent).
Kemp and Kits van Heijningen (12) developed a method for the determi-
nation of glycogen in which the TCA homogenate of tissue is warmed at
100” for 15 minutes. These authors found that extracts prepared with
TABLE II
Comparison of TCA and KOH Methods of Extraction of Muscle in Fed Rats
1 433 453 20 96
2 493 538 45 92
3 470 507 37 93
4 651 693 42 94
5 678 717 39 94
6 567 609 42 93
shown in Table II, our recoveries of glycogen from rat muscle with cold
TCA, compared with those with KOH extraction, are as high as those ob-
tained by Kemp and Kits van Heijningen with boiling TCA, a result prob-
ably due to the high speed and repeated homogenizations we used.
Kits van Heijningen and Kemp (13) made a comparative study of the
“free” and ‘%xed” glycogen content of rat muscle. They considered the
values obtained by extracting with cold TCA as ‘<free” glycogen and those
found by extracting the cold TCA residue wit,h boiling TCA as ((fixed”
glycogen. They observed a mean ratio of “free” to “fixed” glycogen of
1.74 f 0.26. The ‘(free” glycogen thus averaged 63 per cent of the total
glycogen.
Dialysis Experiments-To obtain evidence that might explain the dis-
crepancy between the data obtained by the two methods of tissue extrac-
tion, experiments were designed to show whether anthrone-sensitive ma-
terials, other than glycogen, are present in the precipitates obtained by
treatment of the two types of extracts with alcohol.
588 GLYCOGEN IN LIVER AND MUSCLE
Livers were removed from anesthetized animals and either boiled with 30
per cent KOH or homogenized with 5 per cent TCA. To the KOH and
TCA extracts were added 1.2 and 5 volumes of 95 per cent ethanol, respec-
tively. After centrifuging, decanting, draining, and washing with 95 per
cent ethanol, the precipitates were taken up in distilled water, placed in
Visking cellophane tubing, and dialyzed. Anthrone-sensitive material
could not be demonstrated in the 24 hour dialysate from the glycogen pre-
pared by TCA extraction, but, within an hour from the starting of the
dialysis with the glycogen isolated from the boiling KOH extract, material
responding to ant#hrone reagent was found in the dialysate. The cello-
2060 2040 20 1
4625 4480 145 3
3535 3400 135 4
2160 2040 120 6
1486 1358 128 9
77 57 20 26
81 58 23 28
100 60 40 40
. 25 -
.15r z 0 0
----------o------a ---------- -0
-05 L
1 I I I I I I I
I 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
TIME IN HOURS
FIG. 1. Effect of heating with 30 per cent KOH on rat liver glycogen
tamed by boiling liver in 30 per cent KOH, after cooling but before the
insoluble residue had appeared, was determined. After the residue had
separated and the mixture was centrifuged, determinations of the glycogen
content of the supernatant fluid and the insoluble residue were made.
The results are shown in Table IV. The amount of glycogen in the super-
natant fluid plus that in the residue accounted completely for the quantity
of glycogen found in the original extract. These experiments suggested
that the insoluble residue that forms in KOH extracts of tissue is not gly-
cogen, since it is insoluble in KOH solution. However, it may be argued
that the insoluble residue is glycogen separat,ing from a supersaturated
KOH solution. That this was not the case was shown by further study of
the nature of the residue.
It was found that this residue is not soluble in water which proved that
it was not glycogen. After washing this substance several times with
water, it was found to react characteristically with anthrone reagent, and,
after hydrolysis, to reduce alkaline copper solution. These observations
showed that the insoluble residue that forms in KOH digests of liver is not.
glycogen and is a material that responds to both anthrone and copper re-
duction techniques.
Completeness of Extraction with TCA-It is difficult to remove all of the
glycogen from tissue by grinding with TCA because of the requirement for
completely disrupting the cells and thoroughly dispersing the proteins that
are precipitated by TCA.
To study the recoveries by TCA extraction, rat livers were homogenized
N. V. CARROLL, R. W. LONGLEY, AND J. H. ROE 591
TABLE V
Recovery of Glycogen from Liver by Repeated Homogenizations with 6 Per Cent
Trichloroacetic Acid with Servalb Omnimixer at 14,000 R.p.m.
SUMMARY
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